


Glue

by adelaide_rain



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: And belonging, Broken Jack, Despair, Happy Ending, Hope, In his own twisted way, Loneliness, M/M, Pitch trying to fix him, Redemption
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-02-19
Packaged: 2018-01-12 10:58:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1185432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adelaide_rain/pseuds/adelaide_rain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pitch wants redemption but nothing is ever as easy as that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A sacrifice for love

It starts on Easter Sunday.

Fitting really – new beginnings and all that.

Jack is helping Bunny, the same as he has every year since he became a Guardian. It's tough work but it’s worth it for that moment when all the eggs are hidden and he and Bunny duck into the bushes to watch the kids have fun.

This time is different.

They feel the shadow first. A coolness that's nothing like the fresh wintry cold that Jack brings with him; and most tellingly, a twinge of fear.

Both of them spin on the spot, weapons up. Pitch is standing behind them but not looking at them. He's looking at the excited kids beyond them, at the laughter and light.

“What're doing here,” Bunny snarls, and Pitch just looks at him with mournful eyes.

“Maybe I want what you have.”

Bunny's ear twitches. “Belief?”

“Hope.”

===

They end up taking him to North, who puts him in an ice cell deep below the workshop. Pitch doesn’t protest or fuss, just watches with those mournful eyes.

North questions him, gets the same answer, and shakes his head.

“Don’t tell me you believe him,” Bunny says, glaring at Pitch through the frozen bars of the cell.

“I don’t know what to believe,” North says, stroking his beard. “Perhaps Sandy might have something to say.”

“Oh, I bet he’ll have lots to say,” Bunny snorts, and moves to follow North out. When Jack pauses, he looks over his shoulder at him. “You coming, mate?”

“In a minute,” Jack says. “I wanna ask Pitch something.”

Bunny frowns at him, but then shrugs. “Yell if you need us.”

When they’re gone, the only other person in the room is a yeti guard, his hand on a wicked-looking sword.

“And what is it that you want to ask me?” Pitch’s voice is strangely flat. No anger, no seduction. It sounds like he’s given up.

“I want to know why. Why you suddenly want hope.”

“Because I’m tired of having none. Because I’m tired of being hated, by other people. By myself.”

Jack stares at him. Yes, he knows how that feels, to hate yourself. To be hopeless. That shared experience is what drew him to Pitch last time. It draws him in again. 

“I don’t expect anything to change,” Pitch says, turning away so that he’s nothing but a splash of shadow against the ice-white of his cell. “After what I’ve done. But there’s that whisper of hope, taunting me. More seductive than anything that I could manage. Crueller, too.”

“Things changed for me,” Jack says quietly, and Pitch looks over his shoulder at him but only to roll his eyes.

“Oh yes, Jack Frost and his glorious redemption, Jack Frost and his new friends who only ever paid any attention to him when they needed him.”

“Yeah, well, so did you.”

“Yes, but I’m the bad guy, aren’t I? So what does that make them?” Pitch turns, steps towards the bars. His smile grows slow and sharp, but there’s nothing pleasant in it, only broken bits of bitterness in a sea of despair. 

Jack steps back. It’s something he’s thought himself during dark nights, but he’s too afraid of losing what little he has to question it too much. Having it said so plainly – it’s dangerous. Too dangerous to argue about, because he knows Pitch is right.

And then there’s that smile. Pitch has this way if showing parts of himself that are so painful that they're sharp, jagged spears of ice colder than anything Jack could hope to create. Jack recognises that level of loneliness, knows it too well. Knows the bitterness, the brittleness that comes with it.

It's what Pitch tried to tell him all along. That they have more in common with each other than Jack does with the Guardians. Decades of being with them has done nothing to suggest otherwise. Jack doesn’t belong.

“Stop it,” he whispers, but this isn’t Pitch’s doing. Shoving his hands in his pocket, he clenches his jaw. “Look, even if you’re right, things are different now.”

“For you perhaps.” 

“Maybe for you too,” Jack says. “If you really want things to change.”

“Wanting isn't enough, Jack. I've _wanted_ for years.”

“Have you ever done anything about it?”

Pitch doesn't say anything; lets the silence answer for him. 

“That's what you need then. Action.”

“And what action can I take, trapped in this cell?”

Jack shrugs. “Look, I'll talk to North. See if we can get you out of here.”

“Why, Jack?” Pitch's eyes narrow and he leans as close as the bars will let him, searching Jack's face for teasing or mockery. “Why would you do that?”

Jack has no answer for him. He turns and leaves, trying to understand what he's feeling.

He knows North's place so much better than before, familiarity born from years of helping out with Christmas and occasional get-togethers.

He finds himself in a nook high up in the globe room, where he can look down and see the glittering lights of belief across the world.

He doesn’t want to think about how he still doesn’t quite fit in with the Guardians, so he thinks about Pitch instead. 

What must it be like, he wonders, to be Pitch. He didn't choose this. He is what he was made to be, no more or less. He was made to create fear, for better or worse. Can he be anything else? It sounds like he wants to try. So surely the Guardians should help him with that?

When Tooth and Sandy arrive, Jack suggests it, and is instantly shut down.

_You don't know, Jack; you don't understand; we do. Listen to us, do as we tell you._

Reminding him that he isn’t an equal. That they’re doing him a favour.

Since anything he would say right now would melt into petulance and prove them right, he stays quiet as they decide to keep Pitch imprisoned, which isn't much of a decision at all.

===

Jack finds himself fascinated by Pitch. By the dichotomy of his nature. The way he changes from meeting to meeting, like shadows changing throughout the day. By the bitterness so strong he can almost taste it.  
And the thing is...

The thing is, Jack believes him. That he wants to change.

“Can you, though? Can you change?”

Pitch looks down at him with silver-gold eyes that make Jack's stomach swoop like a dive from the clouds.  
“Can I change?” Barely more than a murmur. He looks away, focusing on nothing as he considers it. “Or is my nature fixed, my destiny set?”

Jack hitches an eyebrow. “Is part of your nature being pretentious?”

Pitch's lips quirk into an almost smile and he inclines his head. “Yes, Frost. As it happens, it is.”

“If you can change, though – I think you should be given a chance.”

There's a pause, and then a huff of air that's nowhere near a laugh. “Well, as we said before, there's not much in the way of redemption to be found here.” Pitch slides a finger down one of the ice bars and Jack watches the movement, transfixed. Pitch’s fingers are long, he sees, with scars on his knuckles. “Although I suppose you're stopping me from doing anything terrible.”

“That's not redemption though, is it?”

“No,” Pitch says softly. “It isn't.”

===

The snow falls thick and fast. Nothing can be seen beyond it. There's nothing to see anyway, other than more snow.

Jack is perched on the highest dome of North's workshop, staring sightlessly out at the vast empty Arctic.

Thoughts whirl through his mind, reflecting the blizzard, or perhaps it's the blizzard that's echoing the tumult inside him. Thoughts of redemption. He thinks about what Pitch said about his nature. It's like North and his centres, Jack thinks. He wonders if a centre can change – and then he wonders what Pitch's centre is.

Shadows? Nightmares?

Fear.

But is fear always so bad? It can be a valuable lesson. If Jack had known a little more fear, he might not have gone out on the ice that long ago day.

A guardian of fear could be a powerful guardian indeed.

Jack decides not to mention these thoughts to the others. He doubts they'd understand; he doubts they'd even listen. Another way that he doesn’t fit in.

Even if they did, though, even if they agreed, there's still the matter of making up for past transgressions, and Pitch has a whole mountain range of those. Can he be forgiven for them? Is there such a thing as redemption for someone who has done so many wrongs?

Jack scowls. He's reached the limit of his ability to wander through thoughts, the limit of the patience needed to consider questions that have no answers.

He takes off, lets the north wind grab him and carry him where it will. Above the clouds, above the snow, where there's nothing but stars and the silvery not-quite-voice of the wind. A presence without words. The only constant in Jack's life and the nearest thing to a friend that he had through long lonely centuries. Closing his eyes, he lets it speed him across the miles but he can't escape his thoughts forever.

Because here's the thing. Jack's done things he's not proud of. Back at the beginning, alone, so desperately alone, with no-one to talk to and no-one to see him, no-one at all to even convince himself that anything was real... Things weren’t good.

He doesn't like to think about those times. He doesn't even know what _was_ real. But some of it was, and if the Guardians knew, he'd be in that cell by Pitch's side.

Memories of sharpened ice and desperately cold temperatures, of blood and still bodies and screaming _do you see me now!?_ edge into Jack's thoughts, and he dives through the clouds as if he can escape them.

Racing across the ice, pirouetting and dancing across a broken floe, he loses himself in his centre.  
And then the clouds part, and there is the moon, bobbing over the horizon. Fat and silver, and offering far fewer answers than Jack had hoped for.

The years have made Jack wary of the Man in the Moon. When he became a Guardian he expected all the answers he wanted, but Manny keeps his cards close to his cratered chest. He shares only what he wants to, feeding them tidbits of information and hoarding the rest.

“I want to help Pitch,” Jack tells him. He waits, but there's no answer. Of course there's not.

Once more, Jack is on his own.

But perhaps...

Perhaps he doesn't have to be.

===

The yeti guard has been moved outside of the room with the cell, guarding the doorway. It's more for Jack's sake than Pitch's. No-one really acknowledges Pitch's presence here, apart from Jack. 

“Here,” Jack says, and offers the book through the bars.

Pitch frowns at him and takes it. He smiles at the cover before looking back up at jack. “I thought for certain that this would be a self-help book. _How to accept your bright side and become a better person_. “

“Yeah well, I couldn't find that one. I figured you'd appreciate this one more.”

“I do. I'm happy to say I inspired some of his works. I'm quite proud of the fear I gave him.” He runs long fingers tenderly over the cover and Jack's startled by the stray thought _I wonder what that would feel like, to be touched like that_.

“So, go on,” he says, to distract himself as much as Pitch. “Read to me.”

It’s a surprise that Pitch doesn’t argue. He just opens and begins to read.

 _“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore-”_ Pitch pauses and looks up. “Shall I continue?”

“Yeah,” Jack says, feeling pleased that Pitch likes his gift, and sits cross-legged before the bars of the cell to listen to Pitch.

===

As the weeks go by, Jack continues to bring Pitch books.

It's not entirely selfless. He likes to be read to. Likes to be acknowledged. Sandy and Tooth are always busy. As the year grows old, North grows ever busier. Jack doesn't even know where Bunny is. The Guardians are too busy for him, as always, but now he has Pitch. A captive audience. Not really a friend, but Jack feels the edges of his loneliness start to dull.

Pitch reads, and Jack listens. A bond that started to form all those years ago begins to thaw. Not severed, only hibernating in the cold of Jack's heart. It grows stronger, and Jack finds himself watching Pitch as well as listening. Watching long fingers turn the pages. Enjoying the way he shifts position on his uncomfortable ice bench, always elegant, sometimes flashing glimpses of long limbs.

As weeks turn to months, Jack realises with a start that he's attracted to Pitch. There's some blurring of lines, he's sure, because of how much attention Pitch pays him. That's always been attractive to Jack. But it is there, and it's real, and Jack’s thoughts are full of what Pitch’s hands would feel like on his skin, what he would taste like.

He goes out and makes snow days, or tries to help North with toymaking, needing something to distract himself. He is rebuffed, pushed out of North’s workshop. He’s not needed. He’s not wanted.

Except by Pitch.

Reading, talking, banter. Filling Jack’s days when no-one else will. Pitch creeps deeper into his heart.

And then one day, after he's handed the new book over to Pitch through the bars of the cell, Jack pushes up onto the balls of his heels. He has just enough time to think _this is the stupidest thing I've ever done_ before their lips meet.

But it doesn't feel stupid at all. It's soft and startled, and it's good. When he pulls away Pitch stares at him, then grabs the front of his hoodie and pulls him back. Jack moans against his lips and tangles his fingers in Pitch's robe, hears him murmur _bloody cold_ but he doesn't stop kissing.

This time when they pull away they're both breathing heavily and they stay close, still pulling the other in by their clothes.

"That was interesting," Jack says.

"Very interesting."

"Dare I say fun?"

Pitch gives a snort of laughter. "If you like," he says, and leans down for another kiss.

===

Over the next weeks, there are many more kisses.

Sweet kisses that surprise Jack. Angry ones that don't. He likes those best, he thinks, likes it when his lips are bitten and bloody. The coppery taste is a souvenir that he takes away with him.

There's more, too. Touching through the bars, through clothes first, but then when it all gets too damned frustrating Jack pulls Pitch's cock out of his trousers and strokes him until he comes, biting down hard on his bottom lip to quiet his cries. Just as well – a yeti coming running in might spoil things somewhat. The next time Pitch gets on his knees and blows Jack. An awkward thing through the bars, but good despite that.

Occasionally Jack thinks _what am I doing_ but the look in Pitch's eyes – possessive, obsessive even – stills his worries. It feels good to be wanted.

It's several months after Pitch was locked up in the ice when North decides to let him help with the Christmas preparations. Just in the cell at first, but when he shows both a willingness and an aptitude for helping, North gives him a room upstairs. The door and windows are both locked and bespelled but still, it's a significant improvement.

“You are an artist,” North says, admiration in his voice as he looks at the tiny puzzle that Pitch has carved from ice.

“I've always been an artist,” Pitch says coolly. “It's not my fault if you haven't appreciated my art before now.”

North laughs, a deep belly laugh, and pats Pitch on the back hard enough to wind him. “Keep up good work,” he advises before striding out, humming, no doubt pleased with his rehabilitation efforts.

Pitch stares after him with wide eyes, looking like a puppy who's been praised by his master, and Jack can't keep quiet anymore. He's been in the corner of the room, quiet during the exchange, but now he sniggers, muffling his laughter with the sleeve of his hoodie.

Glaring over at him, Pitch gives him a haughty look. “You can shut up as well.”

“Teacher's pet,” Jack grins, and Pitch throws an ice cube at him.

They smile at each other. It's strange, this home they've found in each other, spiky and cold and unpredictable, but it's theirs. 

===

Things get better still as Christmas draws closer. Pitch makes more things and continues to impress North. More to the point he seems to be enjoying himself.

Jack enjoys himself too.

The warmth of Pitch's mouth on his cock becomes a more or less daily occurrence, and he learns how very, very hot Pitch's cock is when it's buried deep in his ass. It's the very best kind of fun.

There's a bed in Pitch's room and they make good use of it. Not just the sex, either. They don't need to sleep but Jack likes it. Pitch hates it, but he enjoys watching Jack sleep. _Creeper_ Jack says, but he sleeps anyway, lets Pitch watch.

One day he wakes up to Pitch's warmth and sighs, smiling. This is happiness. Perhaps this is what redemption feels like.

He opens his eyes to see Pitch with a book in his hands.

“Read to me,” he says, and Pitch does, the words wrapping around them in their strange version of happiness.

Which is when everything starts to fall apart.

Bunny finally shows up and his words carry poisonous little barbs that stick in the skin and sow seeds of doubt. In North, in Tooth, both of whom had started to believe that redemption might be possible.

But worst of all, the doubt spreads to Pitch.

Jack can feel him pulling away. Putting up walls around a heart Jack had begun to claim as his own. He stops letting Jack sleep in his room. Stops making toys, stops talking. Turns out the light and sits in the darkness, glaring up at Manny through his tiny, barred window.

All those steps that they'd climbed together have been turned slick with black ice and they're back at the bottom, apart, alone. To have his hope torn away from him like this reminds Jack of those very early days, teetering on the edge of madness. Alone means more than ever now that he's had a taste of real belonging.

But Pitch gets colder and colder, more and more distant.

And then he's gone.

Jack should have suspected when Pitch let him into his room after countless refusals. They fucked slowly, deep and delicious, staring into each other's eyes. Hope had flickered in Jack's chest. Maybe. Maybe.

He had fallen asleep after, thoroughly fucked out and the very best kind of exhausted. It was a sign, too, of trust; an attempt to show Pitch that he deserves that trust.

But when he wakes, Jack is alone.

He has a brief fling with grief, but refuses to wallow in it. He needs to find Pitch – he isn't going to get away that easily.

Jack searches. Puts everything into the search, because the alternative is thinking about the way that the Guardians treated Pitch, the way they treated Jack, too, and that's not a good idea.

So he searches.

Pitch doesn’t return to the Pole and he isn’t in the lair, and Jack doesn’t know where else to look. A man who can melt into shadows is hard to find when he doesn’t want to be found.

But finally, Jack finds him.

After a few weeks Jack checks the lair again, and there Pitch is, brooding on his basalt throne. Jack lands on the other side of the cavern and pauses. None of this is very encouraging; neither him being here nor his seat upon the throne. They both suggest him slipping back into the darkness and Jack is half-afraid he'll take Jack with him. The other half of him doesn't fear that at all and that in itself is frightening.

“Where have you been? I’ve been worried about you,” Jack says. Pitch watches him approach in silence.

There’s an edge to Pitch’s expression; Jack knows him well enough by now to see that he’s been thinking about what happened, obsessing over it, and that can’t be a good thing. His gaze is suspicious and angry.

Ignoring the prickles of danger that run up his spine on sharp little cat feet, Jack reaches out and takes Pitch’s hand where it rests on the arm of the throne. “Don’t just leave me like that. How am I supposed to find you?”

“Perhaps I didn’t want to be found,” Pitch says, but he doesn’t pull away. Instead he looks down at their hands and his anger breaks up into desolation. “I didn’t want _you_ to find me.”

Jack frowns at him and leans his staff against the wall before straddling him. Pitch opens his mouth as if to argue, but his hands go to Jack’s waist.

“You didn’t want me to find you?” Jack asks and glares down at him. “Fuck you, Pitch,” he says, and kisses him. “I’ll always find you.”

“Don’t say that,” Pitch murmurs, kissing back, ducking his hands under Jack’s hoodie and scratching his nails lightly down his back. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“I’ll always _want_ to find you,” Jack corrects, and then gives up with words. He’s _missed_ him, this man who looks at him like he never wants him out of his sight. There’s an edge to it now, a danger and a wickedness, but Jack doesn’t care. He’s missed him so fucking much, but Pitch will only mock him if he tries to say any of that. So he says it with his body instead, and that’s something Pitch will never deny.

Clothes are quickly cast aside. Pitch conjures lube with some spell that Jack really needs to learn, and then he's inside of him. Hot and big and perfect, exactly where he belongs. Jack whimpers, digs his nails into Pitch's shoulders, leaving bloody crescent moons.

They come within seconds of each other and Pitch is shaking as much as Jack is.

They stay there in silence for a long, long time. Jack's afraid to speak. Afraid Pitch won't listen. Afraid of what his own reaction might be.

“Come back,” he says.

“No. Even if I wanted to, I'm not welcome.”

“I want you there.”

“It's not your home.”

“But you've come so far, you can't give up now. Talk to North – make him see, you've changed.”

“I've not changed,” Pitch says, anger  filling his voice. “I _can't_! I've tried and tried but I can't!"

"Yes, you can. The others need time to accept it-"

"It's not the others, Jack, it's me. I can't change who I am. I've tried - I've tried for you - but can't do the impossible."

"It isn't impossible-"

"Just because you want something doesn't mean it's going to happen."

"So that's it?" Jack asks, temper rising. "You're just going to give up? You're going to give _me_ up?"

"It doesn't have to be like that," Pitch says slowly, lifting his head like he's just had an idea. "You could join me - what goes together better than cold and dark?"

Long seconds pass before the temptation inches away. "I won't join you," Jack says quietly, and his voice is less sure than it should be. "Not like that."

Pitch gives him a humourless smile. "Of course not. Yet you expect me to."

Jack can't deny it, so he just looks at Pitch, his chest growing tighter. After everything - after how _right_ it felt - it ends like this?

Something that right shouldn't end at all.

They stare at each other and it gets hard to breathe.

Jack can't stand it anymore and he kisses Pitch, kisses and kisses, curls his hand into his robe and hisses, "You can't do this to me, you can't," and then kisses him again.

"Neither of us can change, Jack."

"You can," Jack says, and even as he does he knows how selfish he's being.

"Denial's not just a river in Egypt," Pitch smiles, and it makes Jack smile, damn him, damn him.

"So what do we do next time we meet? Am I supposed to fight you? Am I supposed to _hurt_ you?"

"You would, if I threaten your friends."

"So don't," Jack says, and Pitch looks so very tired.

"Just go, Jack."

He does, but he leaves too much of himself behind.

===

Once more, Bunny's words start the avalanche.

Seeing Jack heartbroken and hurting, he blames Pitch.

And when Jack is not there – he’s stormed off, tired of nasty, insidious words – Bunny casts out those barbs once more and sets the Guardians against Pitch.

North's clever hands build, Tooth's fairies seek out Pitch, and the plan is set in motion.

Jack would have known nothing about it, too wrapped up in his own pain, if it hadn't been for those flashes of colour from the mini fairies zipping through his woods.

It takes him a long time to summon the energy to move, but when he does, he sees one of them dive into the portal to Pitch's lair.

He follows without hesitation. As he dives into darkness he thinks about Pitch casting him out, but he doesn't stop. Following the mini fairy is a good excuse to see Pitch. Maybe Pitch will change his mind. Maybe-

Maybe the Guardians will be in Pitch's lair.

Maybe Pitch will be bruised and bloodied, tied up in ropes of dreamsand, defenceless and on his knees. Maybe the Guardians will have a weapon pointed at him, glowing brighter with every passing second. A light to conquer the shadows once and for all.

“No,” Jack whispers, his mind stumbling as he tries to decide if this is real or not, like it's the dark old days all over again.

The weapon whines and starts to spark, and Pitch is silent, bowing his head as he accepts his fate.  
The noise cuts through Jack's confusion. This is real. This is real and the Guardians are doing this, they're doing this, they're really _doing this_ -

The whine peaks, so high that it's painful.

“NO!”

Jack jumps in front of the weapon just as the light sharpens to a point-

It hits him-

And then everything-

Goes-

-


	2. Two Kings

Jack dreams of snow. 

Endless snow, blanketing the ground; the bare-limbed trees; and the still figure lying on a stone slab. The figure is glacier-pale, his stillness that of someone conversing with death. There are ice crystals in his white hair, slowly growing until they meet and meld into a crown. He is the Winter King, and he is alone. No visitors, no guardians to watch over him. He has been hidden so well that no-one can find him. 

But someone is looking for him, Jack is sure of that. The Nightmare King searches with an obsessive fervour, but the Winter King is well hidden by magics and much cleverness. 

It's like a fairy tale, Jack thinks, and like a fairy tale, a kiss from the Nightmare King will wake the Winter King. Together they will wreak a dreadful revenge on those that made him sleep. 

But for now, the Winter King dreams of snow.

===

Everything is cold. It has been cold for a long, long time. 

The whisper of warmth against his lips is so foreign that it only confuses Jack for a moment, until he realises: it's a kiss. 

It's his Nightmare King. 

It's hard to open his eyes; frost has frozen his eyelashes together. When he does, he sees Pitch above him, with relief clear in his eyes. 

“Jack,” he breathes- 

“Get away from him, Pitch!” It's Bunny. A snarl, a threat of violence. Anger comes into Pitch's eyes and he turns, standing protectively in front of Jack, but Jack sits, pushing him aside. 

The world is full of twinkling lights. Full of soft little chimes that Jack is sure aren't real. Everything is bleached out, soft around the edges. Distant and dampened. 

“Jack,” Bunny is saying; his face is a battleground as relief wars with guilt. He takes a step forward, but stops abruptly by whatever he sees on Jack's face. Jack doesn't know what it is that makes him react so strongly. After all, Jack's only smiling. 

“This is your fault,” Jack tells him, and his voice sounds like the breaking of thin ice. 

“Jack, come on, come here,” Bunny says, nervousness skittering all over his voice. “Get away from Pitch-”

“He's the one that woke me. You're the one that hurt me. Who do you think I should trust?”

“Not him. He's _Pitch_ ,” Bunny says, and scoffs. Jack notices Pitch's hands curl into fists and he reaches down to take one of them, unfolding it and fitting their fingers together. Bunny looks on, and Jack thinks he can see fear all around him, patches of sharp clarity in this blurry world. “We didn't mean to hurt you. You have to know that. You're a Guardian.”

“No. I'm the Winter King,” Jack says, looking up at Pitch and smiling. He is more real than Bunny could ever be. “And you're my Nightmare King.”

“Yes,” Pitch says softly, warily. Surprised, perhaps, by this change in Jack. That strikes Jack as funny and he laughs. He used to laugh often, he thinks, but it's different now. In a different key, mired in a different kind of humour. Many things are different now.

He examines the slowly flashing lights that drift through the air, and then turns his attention to Bunny. Things were going right, before. Things that hadn't been right for long lonely years. But now they're wrong again, and it's all Bunny's fault. 

“I could freeze your blood,” he tells Bunny. “Or I could freeze a limb, so cold that it would shatter with one good kick. I could freeze a little clump of blood cells together in your brain. Or I could freeze your heart. I could do so many things to you, Bunny.”

“Is this your doing?” Bunny asks Pitch, glaring up at him. Ignoring Jack. That's a mistake. Jack has had enough of being ignored. 

He sends an ice dagger hissing through the air and into Bunny's shoulder. As Bunny cries out, clutching at it and gasping in pain, Jack's lip curls. He's pathetic, this creature who has hurt him so much. He sees that now. 

The sparkling lights are starting to bother him, so he looks up at Pitch. 

“Take us away from here. Before I do something I regret.”

A heartbeat pause as Pitch looks from Jack to Bunny, and then Pitch presses a kiss to Jack's forehead. 

“Of course,” he says, and pulls Jack into the shadows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the comments and the kudos :3 This chapter's much shorter than the last - I think only the first and last will be longer. In any case, I hope you like it.


	3. Wedding Day

If he was thinking properly, Jack might think it's strange that he isn't bored. 

Normally he is always taking to the air, seeking fun and adventure and distraction.

But since he got here, he's been happy to stay in the lair. It's odd; it's not like him at all. 

But then Jack hasn't been much like himself since he woke up. 

He spends most of the time wandering around his new home. There's a lot to keep his attention and it's constantly changing. Molten, Jack thinks. Molten geometry. Sometimes up is down, sometimes a staircase leads to the bottom of the same staircase. He'll fly to try and trick it, but the lair is wilier than he is and he always loses himself. 

But then he's always lost these days. 

There are many rooms, some normal, some... not so much. A wardrobe full of corsets gives Jack ideas he forgets a few minutes later. He finds another wardrobe with more normal clothes, and he pulls on black pants and a black robe that are instantly covered in curling frosts, and discards the hoodie that no longer feels like it fits. One room is dark and empty, save for a broken mirror and a single shaft of silvery light. There's a room where the shadows never stay still, hissing at him as the writhe on the walls and the floors. And then there is Jack's favourite room, a study of sorts with plush black armchairs and shelves lined with books. At night Pitch reads aloud and Jack will curl up against him, trying to pay attention but he can never focus for long. He just listens to the sound of Pitch's voice, his breath, and watches the lights that flicker in and out of existence. 

Today like so many others he is exploring the lair. The hallway he’s walking down leads to a staircase, and beyond that there is a cavernous room full of nothing but staircases. Some of them go up, some down, some sideways. It’s disorientating and Jack feels his skin crawl at the weirdness of it. He goes up one set of staircases but as he does, something _changes_ and suddenly the steps are going down, not up.

He stops and takes to the air but he’s instantly hit by a rush of nausea as his sense of direction flip flops crazily. 

Landing heavily he glares at the walls, at the floor that's sometimes the ceiling. Some days he finds the lair's tricks amusing; other times they're annoying. One of them is more like the way he would normally react, but he's not sure which it is. 

He wanders away and finds a room that he's not been in before. It is lit by small, stained glass windows high up near the ceiling. Thin light streams through them to paint the floor blue and green and purple, and Jack hops from one colour to the other, suddenly sure that if he doesn't do it right, something bad will happen. He stops and conjures diamond dust, watching it dance in the colours, sparkling, reflecting. With a sweeping gesture he pulls it together, making a thin sheet, more to see if he can than anything else. It reminds him of a veil, and the stained glass make him think of a church. With a laugh, he attaches the veil to his crown and sweeps it backward so that is cascades over his hair. 

“Very pretty,” Pitch says, and steps out of the shadows. Jack grins at him as he walks over, looking at Jack carefully. Examining him. 

“Aren't I always?”

“Yes.” Pitch puts a hand to Jack's jaw and tilts his face upwards. He's looking for something, but Jack doesn't know what it is, and distress starts to make his shoulders tighten. If he doesn't know what Pitch wants of him, he'll disappoint him, and he can't do that. Pitch is all he has in the world, after the Guardians... 

Jack pulls away and grins again, knowing that the sharp shards of panic within him are trying to escape through it. 

“You're not so bad yourself,” Jack says, circling Pitch. The jagged rainbow light doesn't look the same on Pitch as it does on Jack. Pitch seems to absorb light. Jack reflects it. His footsteps stop and he stares into the distance, wondering if that means something. 

“Are you feeling any better?” Pitch's questions draws Jack out of his musings. 

“Better?” Jack blinks at him, confused, and Pitch sighs. 

“Obviously not.”

The odd feelings. The lights that he knows aren't real. The way the world wavers in and out like a heat haze. That's what he's talking about. “What's wrong with me? When I saved you- When they tried to hurt you-”

“I don't know whether it was the weapon itself or whatever they tried to do to correct the damage. It – changed you. Surely you know that?”

“Yes,” Jack says, and shrugs. “So I'm broken. I've always been broken. Now I'm just broken in a new way.”

“I don't want you to be broken,” Pitch says, and the ferocity in his voice makes Jack look up at him. His eyes burn golden, his clenched jaw tells a tale of frustration and of hiding hurts. 

“But if I'm broken,” Jack says, cocking his head and putting a hand on Pitch's chest, right over the sternum, and feels Pitch's heart thump under his fingers. “If I'm broken then that makes me easier to control. Surely you want that, right?”

“I don't want you to be broken,” Pitch says again and sighs out his frustration. He strokes a thumb across Jack's cheek. “I want you to want me of your own free will. Perhaps it's that whole redemption nonsense getting to me.”

“You wanted hope,” Jack says, remembering a boy in a hoodie and worn brown trousers who tried to give it to him, who tried to find it for himself. 

“I found you,” Pitch says, and leans in to kiss him. His lips are soft and taste vaguely liquorice-y. “And that's much better.”

“It is,” Jack agrees, and pulls him down for another kiss. Pitch pulls back, and glances up at Jack's diamond dust veil. He touches it and draws in a breath at the cold of it. Jack huffs a laugh. “You know, if you're surprised that ice is cold then I really don't know what to tell you.”

A smile tugs at the corner of Pitch's mouth and he twists it into a smirk. “You look like you're getting married.”

“Then let's do it. I'm yours, you're mine. Let's make it offical.” Jack lifts Pitch's hand and blows gently. Ice curls around his finger, forming a crystalline ring, etched with frosty fronds. Lifting his own hand, Jack plants it on Pitch's chest. “Now do me.”

“You want me to give you a ring?” Pitch looks at Jack's hand. There's a long pause and then a shadow creeps around Jack's finger, solid and ephemeral at the same time. Jack lifts a hand, examining Pitch's work. Having the ring on his finger makes him feel realer than he does most hours, like it's anchoring him. He likes it. It makes him more aware of his body, and Pitch's too, and it reminds him that they've not fucked for days. Maybe they should do something about that.

“If we're married then we should have a wedding night, right?” Jack grins, and throws off his frost covered robe, wriggles out of the pants before Pitch can even speak. He just watches, open mouthed, as Jack strokes himself into hardness. Wearing only his crown and his veil, Jack's fairly sure that he is beautiful, or at least that Pitch thinks he is, and honestly that is all that matters. 

Since Pitch is making no move, Jack gets to his knees and crawls over to him. Arriving at his feet, Jack kneels up and squeezes Pitch's cock gently. 

“Jack-” Pitch looks down at him, conflict in his eyes, but when Jack starts to mouth him through his trousers the conflict disappears. “You're insistent, aren't you?”

“Yes,” Jack says, and pulls down Pitch's zipper. Any reservations or nervousness that Jack might have had at the start of all of this are long gone, buried under the passage of weeks and months. Besides, when everything is so fuzzy and not-quite-real it doesn't matter what he does. 

Since they got to the lair Pitch has shown occasional concerns that he shouldn't be taking advantage of Jack when he's vulnerable like this, but Jack is insistent and Pitch's hunger always wins out. Whatever small steps Pitch made towards redemption, he's backtracking quickly. Jack can't say that he minds since it means he gets what he wants. 

Pitch's cock is hard but the skin is soft, and it's hot, uncomfortably hot in Jack's mouth. He sucks it down, taking it slowly, taking all of it as he strokes himself and keeps eye contact. As always Pitch's haughty demeanour cracks under the weight of pending orgasm, and as Jack works, Pitch curses and gets desperate. Tangling his fingers in Jack's hair he fucks into his mouth, once, twice, more. Jack doesn't drop his gaze, though he has to slow the speed of his hand because he doesn't want to come, not yet. 

“You like that, don't you,” Pitch says grinning, and if Jack's lips weren't stretched around his cock then he'd grin too. “I want to do what's right for you but maybe _this_ is what's right for you, hmm? It's what you ask for. Maybe you do belong with me, my Winter King.”

He pulls back and Jack gasps for his breath. “My Nightmare King,” he whispers, and the ever-presence twinkles gather in the corners and light the shadows. 

“On your hands and knees, Jack.”

Always obedient - at least when he's getting his way - Jack does as he's told, whimpering and moaning as Pitch opens him up with spell-slick fingers, taking it a little too slowly, teasing. Little threads of cruelty intertwined with love. 

And then he's conjuring more lube, slicking himself up with obscene sounds before pressing into Jack, slowly at first and then holding his hips tight enough to bruise, thrusting hard and fast as he moans, as Jack moans, as they both moan together. Jack's mind is spiralling and the room is spinning, softly glowing, and he presses his hips back to meet Pitch's thrusts, greedy for every bit of him that he can get. The stretch burns, the weight of his cock inside Jack is dizzyingly right, devastatingly good. Jack's fingers scrabble on the floor looking for purchase but there's nothing, there's only the pain and the pleasure and Pitch, and that is more than enough, Pitch is always too much. 

Pitch's hands are hot on Jack's hips, everything about him is hot, burning hot, but Jack's attention is zeroed in on Pitch's cock inside him and the way his own cock throbs, untouched. 

“Wanna touch myself,” he gasps. 

“Not yet,” Pitch hisses and thrusts hard, vicious, and Jack swallows down a wail. They get a rhythm again but not for long. Rhythm is order and control and neither of them have much of that.

“Please,” Jack gasps, and when he gets another _not yet_ dissolves into plaintive begging and promises to be a good boy, please Pitch, please-

But then it turns out he doesn't need to touch himself. Pitch's thrusts falter and still and he gives a choked noise, buried deep inside Jack. He's coming and that yanks Jack over the edge. He comes, making pathetic little noises and there are tears on his cheeks, but Pitch's cock is still hard inside him and it's big and fuck it feels good and it hurts and it's _good_. 

Jack sobs as Pitch reaches around and strokes him with a firm hand, wringing the last of his climax from him, claiming it for himself. 

Whispered reassurances that he's a good boy wind around him, comforting as fresh fallen snow, and he sobs again. He's all wrung out but Pitch still strokes him, gently now. It hurts a little but there's comfort too. The world softens until it's a thick, comfortable blanket that Jack sinks into. He closes his eyes. 

By the time Jack comes back to himself, he's curled up against Pitch on a bed made of shadows, right in the light from the stained glass windows. Pitch's hand strokes his arm, and Jack thinks that he's a little bit broken too. Change wasn't good for him. He's the Nightmare King – he's made for fear, and trying to be anything else only backfires, twists him into something he was never meant to be. 

None of that matters, Jack decides, seeing the ring around his finger and smiling. Maybe their broken pieces will fit together; maybe they can make each other whole.

**Author's Note:**

> This is for [blackice week](http://blackiceweek.tumblr.com/). Each chapter will be for a prompt, and thus might be somewhat unbalanced in terms of length/content, but it will all build into one cohesive story. The chapter titles are the prompts. Hope you enjoy it :)


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